BY JOHN NASH
That great National Park teeming with African animals that is Crawley, West Sussex, has again been exposing its departing member, ‘Enry Smith MP in the form of his preposterous Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill. The Bill is the fruiting body of a brain-rot fungus commonly known as animal rights that affects luvvies and idealists. It has once again erupted like a common stinkhorn after lying quietly, spreading its secretive, infected mycelium during the Westminster Asylum’s summer break.
Right on cue, The Mirror anticipated the eruption by distributing copious amounts of verbal fertiliser around the fourth estate because banning trophy hunting is the Mirror’s favourite stinky illegitimate child, fathered by the shyster Eduardo Gonçalves, reichs-propaganda minister in chief to Britain’s army of parasitic ego-chuggers and wildlife poseurs. Unfortunately, ‘Enry’s odious little stink horn was not met with much enthusiasm by the Noble Lords because they have been scrutinising anti-social fungi emanating from the Lower House since 1801 and they know a poisonous gleba when they see one.
They struck it with 62 amendments, acting like the Victorians of old who were so disgusted by the sight of this mushroom they used to go out in the morning with a club and flatten them to save young women’s embarrassment.
Ah, Dear Reader, the truth hurts and so The Mirror was very hurt because it loves animals, African and Portuguese alike, and even its solemn promise, “We are committed to reporting the news accurately…” is actually a giraffe.
On the 13th September, its Deputy Political Editor, Bent Gaze was not sheepish. In an exclusive! he blasted ‘time wasting’ Tory peers, accusing them of “death by a thousand cuts” because time is running out to “stop hunters bringing their sick souvenirs back to Britain”. Perspicacity is obviously spelt “time wasting” in the Mirror. The only thing being cut to shreds at The Mirror is reality. So, to annihilate the truth, The Mirror deployed its poison gas weapons:
First up, the accused American racketeers and Animal Rights behemoth, the Humane Society International (Income $130 million annually – Christobel Block CEO $450,000 pa, Melissa Rubin SVP $405,000 pa, Erin Frackleton COO £313,000 pa. Income spent on animal sanctuaries – 1%):
“A UK ban on importing these sick souvenirs has the backing of the Government, the Commons and over 80% of the British public.” British public support actually drops to less than 50% when they know the ban is damaging to people and wildlife – hence the need for scrutiny in the Lords.
Next up, Four Paws (income £4.3 million pa), registered with the Fundraising Regulator, so required to tell the truth. Its UK director Sonul Badiani-Hamment warned “If this small minority succeeds, … this will impact at-risk and endangered animals around the world.” Sadly, another giraffe. The Ban on hunting in Kenya has resulted in a loss of 70% of its animals in thirty years. In the same period, a promotion of game breeding and trophy hunting in South Africa has seen a 20-fold increase in wildlife in the same period.
Next up in The Mirror salvo of bovine ordure, the World Animal Protection (income £32.5 million pa) Africa wildlife campaign manager Edith Kebesiimea: “Trophy hunting is a cruel and bloodthirsty practice that benefits a small number of rich foreigners … with no regard for our local communities.” Er, Edith, nice try. Your cheque’s in the post. Now look at the list of parasites fielded here by the manky Mirror. Who are the benefitting rich foreigners??? And I hate to be picky, but most trophy hunters use modern weapons, a lot less cruel and bloodthirsty than the spears and snares of your local communities, and most UK hunters (who are foreign) go to South Africa, where they pay the locals in order to hunt. That makes three more giraffes in my tally.
And, talking of paying the locals, the Mirror included a link to this gem paraded by them on the 11th September as a spoiler for The Lords: “A wildlife campaigner tonight controversially compares trophy hunting to apartheid … Adam Cruise, the acting chief executive of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, made the provocative claim … He said the blood sport was dominated by white men who flew to mainly African countries to pursue their hobby on land owned by rich white people, while the pastime failed to benefit local black people.”
Spoken like a truly privileged white person.
Now call me old fashioned, but the CBTH was Gonçalves’ private company (its income secret) that has been dissolved, replaced by entirely unsuspiciously similar Ban Trophy Hunting (income secret, accounts overdue according to Companies House 13/9/23). Dr Adam Cruise is an animal rights wonk (journalist and PhD in philosophy in environmental and animal ethics), the new public face of wily Gonçalves, who, when he wasn’t feeding The Mirror and the glitterati with deceptive (but no doubt profitable) emotional eco-claptrap, was suspected of orchestrating the whole festering trophy problem inside the Westminster Asylum, via his farm of willing dopey donkeys, the APPG called Ban Trophy Hunting. Clearly someone switched the light on and they were all caught operating their lie factory for private interest rather than democracy’s, a practice somewhat frowned upon by those upholding Parliamentary standards. Nobody says anything, but the APPG’s notorious rule-breaking report is now password protected, and could that be the imprint of the speaker’s boot on their collective backsides? Either which way, Gonçalves is suddenly conspicuous by his disappearance and is now believed to be hiding under Dr Cruise’s academic gown telling him what to do next whilst dodging brown envelopes from the Inland Revenue no doubt.
The intrigue goes deeper, Dear Readers – Cruise’s nasty reference to, “white men who flew to mainly African countries to pursue their hobby on land owned by rich white people, while the pastime failed to benefit local black people” is typical of the deceit heralding from these shameless eco-chuggers. Most UK hunters go to South Africa where they hunt on privately owned hunting reserves called game farms, game farming being excellent use of poor, dry land. This tells you that the land is owned by local farmers, most of whom, although white, are locals and, like most farmers, are extremely poor by UK wage standards, especially in a cash poor country where no politician can suggest subsidising “white” farmers. In any case, few local people derive benefit from farms anywhere in the world.
To examine Cruise’s (and thus The Mirror’s) stupid racism card, simply look at Zimbabwe, a country that seized its “white owned” farmland, turning the breadbasket of Africa into a begging bowl. Doing the same in South Africa would turn the wildlife into poor people’s food. Far from eyeing up the tax-contributing game farms of its white population, the South African government is actually trying to organise another additional 20 million acres of game farms for black residents to enter the consumptive wildlife industry.
Other huge hunting reserves in South Africa are actually hunting concessions, effectively leased from the (black majority) government or “tribal land” leased from the (black) occupiers. Dr Cruise is silent on these matters. He prefers to incite race hatred, the racism political card that plays well with left-eyed Minister Creesy in South Africa, who herself was an underground ANC student activist when the Communist Party was still pulling the strings, before today’s kleptocrats took over after Nelson Mandela retired. In the meantime, Dr Cruise, like his puppet master Gonçalves, has not saved a single African animal with his academic idealism. So much for the manky Mirror’s deceptive campaign, in reality, eyeball generating, flag waving for the shyster Gonçalves.
Read again the Mirror’s, “We are committed to reporting the news accurately…” and understand why Lord Hugo Swire denied the amendments and debate were “designed to wreck this Bill”.
Hopefully, the nasty, lying mollusc that is this anti-hunting campaign will get the dose of salt it deserves in The Lords. Meanwhile, the manky Mirror’s Bent Gaze and the whole nest of idealists and eco-crooks that slither along the same dishonest road are, quite unsurprisingly, all frothing copiously.
Tick tock. Or as they say in Portugal, ‘tique-taque’.
John Nash grew up in West Cornwall and was a £10 pom to Johannesburg in the early 1960’s. He started well in construction project management, mainly high-rise buildings but it wasn’t really Africa, so he went bush, prospecting and trading around the murkier bits of the bottom half of the continent. Now retired back in Cornwall among all the other evil old pirates. His interests are still sustainable resources, wildlife management and the utilitarian needs of rural Africa.